No smoking in cars carrying children: Big Brother or good idea

I do not smoke in my car if there is anyone -- adult or child -- in the car with me who is a non-smoker. I consider it common courtesy. I do not need the governemnt telling me whether I can smoke in my own car.

While we're at it, why not a law limiting the volume on your car stereo if there's a child in the car. After all, you can damage the poor kid's hearing.

Funny how so many of you can trash the Bush administration (rightfully so) for trampling on peoples' rights yet you can support this kind of government intrusion as "protecting the children."

 

Just sterilize smokers and be done with it.

 

Methinks everybody has staked out their turf on this one.

One one side, the Socialist Hordes from Canada and on the other side, the "We Can Do What the Fuck We Want When We Want" Americans.

I don't have a problem with the law whatsoever any more than I have a problem with mandatory seatbelts.

 

Actually, yes, the 4-year-old can avoid eating something. Not that they would, but they can. Trust me. I know it well.

Again, if you can tell people how to strap their children into cars, to wear their seatbelts and you not to talk on cell phones in cars, you can tell them not to smoke with children in the car.

And great, spnited, you understand the common courtesy there. Unfortunately, plenty of idiots out there can't control themselves well enough to put the welfare of their children before their own pathetic addictions.

 

If scientific, double blind, placebo controlled studies continue to say the affects of secondhand smoke on children are significant, I'd be in favor of laws similar to the seatbelt and carseat laws.

In other words, police aren't necessarily stalking you trying to catch you not wearing your seatbelt or not putting your baby rear-facing in the carseat... But if you get pulled over for something else and the police notice you're not doing it, they ticket you. You could certainly do the same thing with smoking/kid in car.

The latest scary study I saw about secondhand smoke and kids was that if you smoke around your kids for an extended period of time, it could affect your little boy's sperm count when he gets older and your little girl's ability to have a child. It's scary.

 

Exactly. If it stays within those limits, I'm all for it.

If they start doing click it-or-ticket style enforcement, I'm not.

 

Kids aren't property. And, yes, some parents need to be forced to treat their children correctly. It's a sad reality. Those parents who are treating their kids right - ie. not forcing the kid to breathe their second-hand smoke - have nothing to worry about.

 

And I'm sure every single one of them would love to to get away from the smoke in the car.

 

Mandatory seatbelt and helmet laws are a joke, enacted only because of lobbyists from insurance companies who didn't want to pay the medical bills of those they insure.

I wear a helmet when I go for a bike ride and I always wear my seatbelt. But if I want to run the risks of massive brain damage, paralysis or death by not doing either of those things, it's my own damn business.

Insurance is the biggest scam in the history of the planet and seatbelt/helmet laws are just another way to keep them from having to pay claims. [/rant]

 

I’m not all that in favor of the law, but it seems that some reminding is needed. Driving is not a right. Nobody is born with the right to drive. It is a privilege. It is a privilege that can be revoked at any time.

I don’t believe that there is the right to smoke on a bus or train these days either. So, if the government decides to extend its control over travel by removing tobacco… it can.